Success Tips for Expat & International Careers

Ongoing Career Management is No Longer Optional for the Expat in Today's New World of Work

Recently I was honored to be asked by fellow career and resume specialists Miriam Salpeter and Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter to join a community of career bloggers called "Career Collective".  Their brainchild came from their desire to build a strong collective of career expert voices and a sustainable community of career expert bloggers. So once a month I'll be writing about a topic selected by the Career Collective here on my blog.

This month's topic is related to taking a "cookie-cutter" approach to the job search.  (For those of you not familiar with that expression, it essentially means taking a standard, traditional, one-size-fits-all approach to the job search.)

There are numerous trends that one has to consider when thinking about how to approach the job search in today's job market. Here are a few of note:

• Recent studies have indicated that the average stay of an upper-level manager or executive at a company is 2.3 years. 

• One recent survey indicated that 45% of recruiters and hiring managers use the information they find online in their hiring decisions.

• According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the top in-demand jobs for 2010 in the U.S. did not even exist in 2004.

Of course, the relevancy of these statistics can vary across industries and across cultures.  But no one can argue with the fact that the times, they are changing.

What does this mean?

• Long-term job security is a thing of the past - expecting that you will only have to conduct a job search a handful of times over your career is going to leave you ill-prepared to thrive in the new world of work.

• Whether you like it or not, your online presence will affect how recruiters & hiring managers think about you as a potential candidate for a job. What shows up in the search results when someone googles your name will affect the strength of your application for any job to you might apply.

• Market needs are constantly changing - believing that a series of job titles on your resume or CV is going to be enough to communicate how you can help a company solve it problems will leave you ill-equipped to compete in today's market. Being clear about your personal brand and being able to powerfully communicate how your qualities, skills and accomplishments are relevant to a particular company's needs is no longer optional if you want to be taken seriously by employers. 

Is an Online Degree a Smart Choice for Expats?

This guest post is by expat Michelle Fabio of BleedingEspresso.com. Michelle also writes about how to choose a master's degree program at MastersDegreeProgram.org.

In today's ever-changing, always competitive job market, expats must strive to make themselves as marketable and employable as possible, constantly honing skills and adjusting with the times - and an online degree could provide a great opportunity to do so. Going back to school is usually a smart way to climb the career ladder, but does the same hold true for expats

The quick answer?  Maybe, depending on your situation.



But before we get to how to figure out whether pursuing an online degree would be right for you, let's talk some basic facts about distance learning. Make no mistake: online education is more popular than ever. In the United States, the number of students taking online courses doubled to 3.9 million between 2003 and 2007, which was faster than the growth in traditional university settings by 12%.



These numbers probably aren't surprising to those of you from the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, though, where distance education by respected universities has been around for decades; in fact, in 2000 - nearly 10 years ago - 14% of Australian university students took part in distance learning.



How do employers feel about online degrees? Well, times they are indeed a-changing. Distance learning is increasingly gaining more respect from employers, who understand that not everyone can take time off from work--or in the case of expatriates, relocate to a new country--to attend school full-time or even part-time.